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August 10, 2016 · 9:29 pm

Fallo da solo Italian Cinema!

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This week’s Barrosse family film series continues with a bit of homemade Italian cinema…

A few years ago, my family traveled to Italy in the company our good friends, the Rashids. We’ve known each other since college and have shared a long, rich history in music, comedy and theatre. Despite all that, we still get along.

We began our two-week Italian sojourn in Florence and took in many of the incredible sights that unparalleled city offers – then made our way to Pisa, Siena, Assisi, and a variety of small towns in southern Tuscany.

Our final week was spent largely in the small, historic hilltop village of Camporsevoli, near the border with Umbria, where we rented a venerable and very comfortable house, Casa del Neri, from the wonderful Grossi family, who own and manage the estate.

Picturesque Camporsevoli is like a tiny magical kingdom right out of a Shakespearean comedy, complete with a lovely church, clock tower, winding cobblestone streets, classic statuary, imposing gates and lush gardens. It’s an ancient place (two Etruscan tombs are preserved in the village cellars), and it’s been in the Grossi family since the middle of the 1800’s.

004_display As soon as we saw Camporsevoli – we knew we had to use it as a backdrop for a performance of some kind.

Thus was born “La Commedia di Camporsevoli”, written and shot over three merry, memorable days in a fabulous place to which we all hope to return someday soon.

italya The entire movie was shot on my iPhone. Not my new iPhone, mind you – but my ancient iPhone from three long years ago. That was all the equipment we used. And if that’s not homemade enough — the owner of the estate graciously agreed to play the priest. (He stole the show!)

Simple, bare bones film making — and lots of fun.

Si prega di godere il nostro piccolo film!

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Filed under Adventure, Art, Comedy, History, Travel

Tagged as Camporsevoli, comedy, commedia, film, improvisational comedy, Italy, Tuscany

September 6, 2010 · 10:34 pm

“Now, Voyager” Revised

My wife is a huge Bette Davis fan and years ago she introduced me to one of Bette’s best films: Now, Voyager.

Based on the popular romantic novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, Now, Voyager was released in 1942. Mega-star Bette Davis was Oscar-nominated for her performance in the film, which was selected in 2007 by the Library of Congress for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry. Like all the great movies accorded that honor, Now, Voyager was deemed to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Now Voyager may be a timeless classic – but there’s one central aspect of the film that has not aged very well: all that smoking.

Of course, until the last 20 years or so, everybody smoked in the movies – and in the 40’s and 50’s, cigarette smoke filled nearly every romantic drama, gangster movie, western and film noir frame. But Now, Voyager made smoking a central character.

In the film’s signature moment, Paul Henreid lights two cigarettes in his mouth at the same time and hands one to Bette. Henreid’s ultra-romantic two-cigarette move was first used ten years earlier in the film, The Rich Are Always With Us – but when Paul Henreid did it in Now, Voyager — it caused a sensation. For years afterward, Henreid couldn’t go anywhere without women begging him to pop two cigarettes in his mouth and fire them up.

Back then — unlike Bette and Paul’s relatively chaste and unrequited lovers — Hollywood and the cigarette companies were in bed together. Check out this fine article for some eye-opening details on this unhealthy alliance, including Bette’s contract with Lucky Strikes – and Paul Henreid’s own radio promotion, using his role in Now, Voyager to flog cigarettes.

68 years later, Now, Voyager’s smoky and sensual signature bit of dramatic business just wouldn’t fly in today’s more health conscious, socially and politically correct Hollywood.

So, while we were working on “The Vic & Paul Show” early this year, we asked ourselves, “What would happen if Now Voyager was re-made in 2010?”